When Incat Tasmania, a manufacturer of high-speed ships for commercial ferry operators and the military, had problems with its structural fire protection panel (SFP) supplier, the company turned to AYRES Composite Panels to develop and qualify a new SFP system for marine applications. AYRES redesigned the panels used to insulate the structure of aluminum ships with the aim of helping shipbuilders save weight and reduce costs.
“Most recently, Incat used a fiber mat that was pressed into panels with a hard ceramic top layer. The panel was relatively heavy and the cladding was slightly damaged during installation and operation, ”says Christoph Becker, Group CEO of AYRES Composite Panels, a global manufacturer of lightweight honeycomb panels for ship interiors headquartered in Bayswater, Western Australia.
AYRES named its new panels FReD, which are derived from the fire-resistant divisions of the International Maritime Organization in their high-speed vehicle security codes. FReD panels are flat honeycomb panels with an intumescent mineral fiber mat applied to one side. The heat of a fire causes the mat to expand into a sturdy, thick blanket that isolates the support plate and the ship’s structure.
AYRES worked with Technical Fiber Products (TFP), a supplier of the intumescent fiber mat, to develop the FReD panels. “TFP has supplied a mat for similar applications in the past, which is why we were very interested in working with them,” says Becker. “However, the current fire protection regulations are stricter than all mats for which TFP had previously qualified, so TFP had to develop a new solution.”
The two companies began discussions in May 2019 with the aim of meeting a tight July 2020 timeframe to develop, test and qualify the panels before installing them on an Incat ship. But it wasn’t all smooth.
TFP visited AYRES ‘manufacturing facility in Mobile, Ala. To learn about the company’s manufacturing processes, while AYRES engineers traveled to the TFP facility in Burneside, UK to see mat production and learn about the physical and processing required To inform performance parameters of the mats. TFP made a range of mats and AYRES built the FReD panels, but the initial results failed in insulation and protection tests.
By directly observing the occurrence of the errors, AYRES was able to modify the design to improve the results. In January 2020, AYRES and TFP had in-depth discussions about the tests and ways to improve the results. By the end of February, a new design had successfully met the stringent requirements of the International Maritime Organization for insulation and fire suppression tests.
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